Mephisto 3170 – The evangelical bloc!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Mephisto
Although I made fairly good progress at first, there was some tough stuff here.   After two hours I had all but one, and decided to go to bed.   In the morning, the phrase ‘ledger beam’ popped into my head, and I looked it up and there it was!    As usual, a wide vocabulary and considerable reading of pre-19th-century texts, such as Spenser and 18th- century diarists and letter-writers, is very helpful.

Added later: It seems like this was more difficult than I had supposed.   So how did I manage to solve it?   Well, moorcocks and mocha went in almost immediately as obvious answers, so I had some starting letters right at the beginning of my solve. It was not hard to see rheas, cart off, snap on, and the tempting but incorrect clarion.   Eilat was pretty obvious, and the anagram for Nostratic only had a few positibilites – I remember thinking it very likely ended in -atic, and you can place the other letters with the likely endings of the crossers before you have the crossers.   So I had nearly the whole top half before long.   It was the bottom half that was really tough, although there were some helpful starters like empaire, turnscrew, and moxie.   I was strangely slow with masterate, constructing it from the cryptic without recognizing it as a word.   I finished up with the rather obscure basnet, acroter, axinite, and herdic, but my LOI was actually the very obscure leidger. 

Across
1 Grouse about splitting low diamonds (9)
MOORCOCKS – MOO + R(C)OCKS.   No, not ice, as I tried for a bit.
11 In conversation one derides instant tea and coffee (5)
MOCHA – Sounds like MOCKER, and MO + CHA – two cryptics for the price of one.
12 On reflection, suppose record dated envoy (7)
PLENIPO – OPINE LP backwards.   The word is typical of early 18th-century slang, the sort of coinage Swift was always mocking.
13 Recurrent note for all to see on large sticker (5)
GLUER – RE + U + LG backwards, or recurrent.
14 Monkeys provided by US agency on schedule snubbed (7)
NASALIS – NASA + LIS[t].
15 Millions wanting taste of preservatives relish salt (6)
MALATE – M + [p]ALATE.
16 China in case of silver-gilt is apt to break (5)
SPALT – S[ilver](PAL)[gil]T.
17 Very good person on a roll is one up for a turn (7)
PIVOTER – PI VOTER.
18 Russian cloak seen in part of China on a supporter (7)
SARAFAN – SAR + A FAN.   A Special Administrative Region, in China.  A sarafan is more a dress than a cloak.
24 Knock that’s taken by party evident (7)
CONFEST – CON + FEST, a slangy use of con as an objection or weak point.
25 European politician’s broadcast backing off past damage (7)
EMPAIRE – EMP  + AIRE[d].   I had trouble accouting for the E for a while, but then I saw broadcast was an adjective.
29 Praise that’s vague after change of direction (5)
ROOSE – (-l,+R)OOSE.
30 One’s heard the lady’s fellow getting a carriage (6)
HERDIC – sounds like HER DICK.
31 Times follows article enjoying success: start of excavation revealing mineral (7)
AXINITE – A + X + IN IT + E[xcavation].
32 Mount horse on ring from behind? For starters bit of luck’s needed (5)
LOGAN – NAG + O + L[uck] backwards.   The second highest mountain in Canada, not in Chambers, of course.
33 Lieder rendered by tenor of colour (7)
TILERED – T + anagram of LIEDER.
34 University hospital riddled with difficulty? Repeatedly as before (5)
UNETH – U(NET)H, where the literal is a backwards reference to the final two words of the cryptic.
35 Driver rotates group in charge of bus, for example (9)
TURNSCREW – TURNS + CREW.
Down
2 Love to get on lake shortly with a spot of net-fishing for this? (7)
OOLAKAN – O + O[n] +LAK[e] + N[et-fishing].   More commonly known as eulachon, but what fun is that?
3 Eyes field glasses out of pocket (7)
OCULARS – [bin]OCULARS, where pocket is a slangy verb, and so is bin
4 Man goes into headland for the birds (5)
RHEAS – R(HE)AS.   Yes, besides being an Ethiopian price, ras is a headland.
5 Take away recipe of cracking eatery (7, two words)
CART OFF – CA(R, TO)FF.
6 Trumpet class dropping behind on air embarrassed (7)
CLARINO – CL + anagram of ON AIR.   I had first put CLARION, which fits the wordplay and the literal, but comes a cropper with the crossers.
7 Relatives packaging work up like things quickly attached (6)
SNAPON – N(OP)ANS backwards, giving what is a registered trade-mark here in the US.
8 Narrative made up about one foreign resort (5)
EILAT – TAL(I)E backwards.   In Israel, to be precise.
9 Fencing post is large stake (5)
SPILE –  A double definition, although I have a feeling something else may be going on here.   Comments invited.
10 Hypothetical language not racist happily (9)
NOSTRATIC – Anagram of NOT RACIST, a write-in for philogists.
15 Rank bad teams, head of rugby scoffed (9)
MASTERATE – Anagram of TEAMS + R[ugby] + ATE..
19 Do care about rubbish in base of statue (7)
ACROTER – Anagram of CARE around ROT, with do as the anagram indicator.
20 Supporters ringing unionist bell (7)
ANGELUS – ANGEL(U)S, angels in the sense of early investors.
21 Resident’s one to stop part of timber scaffolding (7)
LEIDGER – LE(I)DGER.
22 Losing lead in chess cost one upset with openings (7)
OSTIATE – [c]OST + I + ATE, a write-in for Latinists.
23 Headgear absent for a change (6)
BASNET – anagram of ABSENT.
26 Missouri team’s energy? (5)
MOXIE – MO + XI + E, a clever &lit.
27 Soldier turned up bearing news from down under (5)
POILU – P(OIL)U, i.e. UP backwards, and oil as the slang term for information from Australia.
28 Tips for Toulouse waiter attached to club? (5)
TRONC – T[oulouse waite]R ON + C, another &lit, referring to a Continental system of sharing gratuities.

9 comments on “Mephisto 3170 – The evangelical bloc!”

  1. I found this extraordinarily difficult, far harder than any I can remember for a very long time. It took me back to my early days of Mephisto-solving when the things would take me most of the week scrabbling around in Chambers and I often didn’t finish. I have 2h20m on the clock, and while I left the timer running for a few stretches while doing other things (what’s the point of timing yourself when it’s taking this long?) that’s probably not too far off. At least I finished.
    1. Much the same experience here, but I wisely threw in the towel after 45 minutes only yielded about a third of the answers.
      1. Yes very wise. I haven’t been defeated so comprehensively by a Mephisto for years though so I was determined not to let the bugger win!

        Edited at 2021-06-06 04:39 pm (UTC)

  2. I too wondered about 9d. I think that the definition for SPILE is ‘fencing post’, while the wordplay is S = is, PILE = ‘large stake’. Or maybe not.

    It was indeed a tough one, which took me several sessions over a couple of days.

    1. Yup, re. spile. Just over two hours, with about 20 mins on the left hand side, and the remainder on the right. Tough stuff. Agree that 26d is a cracker. A susbsequent thirty minutes spent finding out about nostratic.
    2. Yes this is right. The second definition of PILE in Chambers is ‘large stake’ and SPILE is a ‘post for fencing’.
  3. 9d — I agree with the above parsing of S + PILE. 24ac — my Chambers gives knock as a (dialect) meaning of con, so I don’t think you need to resort to a slangy definition.
  4. But not a lot else in an hour. I tend to do the weekend fare a week behind but think I’ll need to give myself the whole week for the Mephisto

    One of the few clues I did get elsewhere was an incorrect CHEAP for RHEAS. C(HE)AP and “for the birds” is an expression meaning…cheap. It was probably the only clue I was sure I had right. Stopped me being able to put MOO as the first three letters of 1ac which helped gum up that corner though I think I would have mightily struggled with the RHS where EILAT was my sole entry

    Chapeau for solving and blogging — not the easiest

  5. I didn’t find this too difficult, particularly if you trust the wordplay. I did this in one session pretty quickly, and my only question mark was EILAT

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